Balancing
by Seretocarlo
Summary: Where's she been all this time? Cho's been busy too, you know, but she had to come back for his final battle. And then, maybe after that? Deathly Hallows time period featuring flashbacks.
1. Chapter Six

Balancing

(does she think she can serenade him or something?)

AN: Very quickly, Harry Potter isn't mine. My hypothesis is, however, that it does contain that spark that I'd seek to coax into writing. Also, yeah, this has a scene from _Deathly Hallows _and is in that general time period. Sorry.

---

_Can't really handle the balance, it's thinner than you'd think._

Cho gripped the broomstick more tightly. It had been too long since she'd flown. Whereas she thought she'd relax, she instead found herself frightened, frightened that she'd lost her touch, frightened that she couldn't avoid her thoughts even with the wind blowing in her hair and the feeling of blasting freedom.

It was different, though. She was used to a dull paranoia, the fear she'd would recognize more names on the list of the purged, the dead, the wanted fugitives. The fear that her family would be found and—and taken. The fear that she herself would be found one day—Apparate in the wrong place, let slip the Taboo name.

The fear that the _Daily Prophet_ would arrive early one morning, in color, flashing that message. _UNDESIRABLE NO. 1 CAPTURED_. And with a picture of him, sunken and despairing, looking grim, beaten and bruised. Him, hopeless. Maybe not even thinking about _that _girl.

Could she really say why the first thing she did every morning was run to the newspaper to see? Had they ever been that close? Had it even been fun? Maybe half the times they'd met she knew she'd been crying and miserable about the other him, and...

She slipped into a familiar refrain. How could he have put up with it? She, Cho, always thinking of another boy, a boy that he had perhaps respected but, at least, envied—someone he had always been bitter towards. He, Harry, always comforting her—awkwardly, of course, incredibly awkwardly, because he was one of those boys who knew absolutely nothing about it, and felt like he never could—eventually drawing a smile. Together but with the unspoken barrier between them.

No, she admitted to herself. It had been miserable. The rumors. The grief. The arguments. The unspeakable Umbridge. The total inability to concentrate on anything.

By any objective standard, being alone had done wonders for her. Her nerves were steadier, her step more sprightly, and her whole bearing was assured and confident. But while she didn't think she was obsessed, she did know that in the back of her mind, it had been for him. Fighting Death Eaters, thinking in the back of her mind that she was upholding her end of his fight; on the run, wondering if she'd run into him; seeking news of him wherever she went.

It wasn't all she thought about, of course; she had moved on, or tried. She'd had a fling or two in the intervening year and broken them off disgustedly. She'd occupied herself with her task and her battles and her friends—those few that she could find; so many were in the grasp of the Ministry, voluntarily or not. But in idle moments, she thought of him and—what could have been.

A bird raced straight at her and she swooped the broom down, far too quickly, almost out of control. Everything was more sensitive than she recalled. She never could handle the balancing job, though. That was why everything had gone wrong in the first place; and so she stopped juggling and focused on her solitary task—doing what she could to erode against—You-Know-Who.

One day, she'd felt a sudden warmth on her chest and she wildly thought he was here and somehow she hadn't known it but her body had. But no. It was Granger's fake Galleon. For a moment she thought unpleasant thoughts about Granger. Maybe if the hex on the DA list had been less... scarring, Cho would never have fought with him. Maybe if she had warned them—and surely that was the point? Not to catch a sneak, but to _prevent_ them?

So yes, she'd stewed about it for a while before realizing what the signal meant—Harry, at Hogwarts. Her thoughts blasted bast her—she thought he had come back, called her to him because he wanted her help and needed her to rescue him from the clutches of You-Know-Who, with Dumbledore's Army assembling to destroy him.

Ah, right. The entire DA. (Ginny's name, anyway, she thought darkly; Cho's first, but Ginny's then.) And Harry wouldn't be there; it would have been Granger, or whoever—no, Harry had been nowhere for a year. Not captured, not dead—hiding. _In Gryffindor dwell the brave at heart. _

And so she thought of ignoring it. But then again, even if he weren't there, what was she doing? Nothing. Tracking Death Eaters. Playing the vigilante. Why not at Hogwarts?

---

"How long is this thing, anyway?" she asked Lee.

He shrugged. "Who knows. Only way in, anyway."

They fell silent again. The flickering lights danced on the wall. Cho decided she didn't want to talk anyway.

Oppressive silence and trudging through a corridor.

But he was here; and Voldemort was coming, and everything felt final. Important events had always seemed to happen in May around here anyway—at least, they had for the past six years; why should they stop now?

Cho figured she had enough self-control not to make a fool of herself the moment she entered the Room of Requirement. She would see him, nod casually at him, and sit down. She would get to business. There were important things to do.

And when she saw him she did exactly that. He looked up at her—not much changed, slightly more bruised, slightly taller maybe? More rugged, and more confident; but at the moment, he looked as if someone had Confunded him. It made her feel—oddly normal. This had not been an altogether infrequent occurrence. She smiled at him.

"I got the message," she said, holding up the fake Galleon; and before he could drop that charming look of befuddlement, she sat down—with the Ravenclaws, out of general habit.

They greeted her warmly, but seemed rather surprised. "Cho?" asked Terry.

"Where have you been?" asked Michael.

"Around," she said. "Doing what I could." It was easy enough to forget how nice it was to be around friends you knew—the comfort in the old as well as the new.

And she looked up at Harry again; but he seemed distant. She felt oddly stricken. He'd seen her and things had seemed normal, but it had been a fleeting moment. She felt—not as if there was bad feeling between them, but rather as if there was no feeling there, a void.

The room quieted. Cho listened intently as Harry dithered for a while and then asked about the diadem of Ravenclaw. Diadem. Honestly. It was a fable. Like the Chamber of Secrets. Okay, so maybe that was a bad example. Okay, so maybe it was real, and Harry had his reasons for seeking it out. It wasn't really her prerogative to wonder if Hogwarts had any surface-to-air missiles.

Now that she thought about it...

She spoke up. "If you'd like to see what the diadem's supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry. Ravenclaw's wearing it in her statue."

He considered for a moment and looked at her. Not that she was concerned right now, but he seemed careless. He wasn't embarrassed to see her; he wasn't surprised, he wasn't unfriendly, but she was just there. It was a glance. Somehow this unconcern was more annoying than anything else.

And then he looked away again. "Listen, I know it's not much of a lead, but I'm going to go and look at this statue, at least find out what the diadem looks like," he said, and added something quietly to Weasley (well, the tall one. Ron) and Granger.

Cho stood up. _I don't have any ulterior motives, do I?_ _Absolutely none. Okay, possibly one. _But then, Ginny was glaring at her.

"No," she said quickly. "Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?"

And she sounded positively tiger-like. Cho dispassionately wondered if that was the voice she used during her various snogging sessions with, say, Michael Corner and Dean Thomas and—well, she didn't keep track, but who could?

(All right, so there weren't that many, but Cho couldn't be blamed. Ginny had started it.)

Anyway, she didn't feel like getting in an argument about it. Unlike _certain people_, she felt like she could wait to talk, to friends, until after the greatest threat to the wizarding world in known history had been defeated. Maybe it was a maturity issue.

Cho sat down again and Harry and Luna climbed out of the room. She sighed. Despite her internal bravado, she had the distinct impression that he'd forgotten. That she didn't exist to him anymore. The look he'd given her—diffidence. _You had your chance, but you couldn't keep your balance then, either; and once you fell off you couldn't get back on._

She wondered idly—_what if I had been stronger?_

And then she stood up, went to a shelf, and started brushing up on her defensive spells.

---

AN: I am awfully bothered by the portrayal of characters as totally dependent on others. They have their own lives that don't depend on their romantic partners. Of course, I have lots of issues like this, so what I really mean is that it's a little contradictory for me to think of Cho relying so much on Harry. But then, so does the rest of the world.

I also regret how hard it is to choose titles and names. It's good because in fanfic you never have to decide on a character's name; it's fun to write a character who you already know, and weird to create one yourself—Steve, you think. I know a Steve; and you apply Steve's characteristics to your character; and invariably they're too real and too bothersome to work. But you still need a title; and so, why not allow yourself that touch of the dramatic, those words that sound awfully nice and therefore clichéd?

I believe this is where I say "to be continued?"


	2. Chapter Three

Balancing  
(I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were her...)

What was there to really do after you'd graduated from Hogwarts? The Ministry couldn't be trusted. Everywhere, people—those she'd known and those she hadn't—were disappearing or dying. The fragile texture of the Wizarding community was kept together by a tissue of lies.

One day, Scrimgeour had resigned mysteriously. Too many wizards and witches believed it, though; maybe a majority, maybe not, but certainly too many for anyone to stir them up to action. Cho's parents had seen the truth: the day that Voldemort came back had slipped by, and now it might soon be too late. Whether or not they were pureblood, as "aliens" and foreigners, they were sure they had to take precautions.

So they'd proposed to take Cho with them when they left.

Temporarily, her father had said. Just for the duration of the war. They'd had a longing to return for years now, anyway, her mother added. They'd found everything they needed in Britain; they were wealthy and successful; their eldest daughter had completed her education and had every opportunity, and there was still time to return.

Cho had declined, politely. She had tried to explain, but they were uninterested. Her father had simply nodded. "I thought you might say that," he'd said. And so he'd given her the key to a vault in Gringotts, and turned away.

His way was never to show emotion, and so Cho would've been hard-pressed to show that he was disappointed. But still, every sign that she might recognize was there. "Here" (he seemed to say) "we have a child who again doesn't know what is proper, who doesn't respect the way we are."

A few days later, they'd parted. Cho had gone back to their house not knowing what to do, resisting her desire to cry—which she'd gotten considerably better at during the last year. She fell into a sofa and a bit of a trance. What was there to do? Why had she even stayed? She didn't think she could explain it to herself, and wondered how she'd expected to do so to her father. "Because I don't want to leave my friends" would be miserably inadequate—family came before friends. And, Cho admitted, she didn't even want to talk to most of her friends. After Cedric—she hadn't felt much like, say, shopping or anything of the sort. Maybe dropping.

"Because I feel like I still have something to do here," she said aloud. "But I guess that's sitting around, sipping demonade." (She glanced ruefully down at the nearly empty bottle.)

"Do you now? Well, well, that's good."

Cho's head whipped up, her hand flew to her wand, and she was on her feet before she knew it. But she took a moment to realize the voice had come from behind the couch, and a recognizable dimunitve wizard clambered up.

"Professor?" she said.

Flitwick nodded. "If you wouldn't mind, my dear, could you tell me what it was you broke in my class, your fifth year with the Banishing Charm?"

Cho blushed. "The antique Foe-Glass. Sorry, Professor, I—I'll pay you back..."

Flitwick waved it away. "It was of no account, Miss Chang, but I had to ask. Security."

"Oh." A pause. "What?" she asked.

The professor glanced anxiously around. "I must be quick," he said. "Since You-Know-Who returned, he has been committing atrocities and spreading terror everywhere once again. Now that you are of age, I thought to ask you to join us."

She stared. "Me?" (Flitwick looked around, as if trying to see anyone else he might have been speaking to.) "But I—I'm not _that_ good. Don't you want someone more experienced?"

"My dear, in this time, we need everyone. Your age is hardly an obstacle, and if you're half as good with Defense against the Dark Arts as you are with Charms, you will be a great asset."

Cho blushed. "Thank you, sir, but I really don't feel like I'm qualified," she said. She paused for a moment.

"And I heard Snape was the new headmaster..."

Flitwick nodded heavily. "Yes," he said, "but that's neither here nor there."

"Yes it is," Cho said. "I could never deal with him in class, how am I supposed to deal with him there?"

It was the professor's turn to stare. Then he smiled widely. "Miss Chang, while I am sure you'd be excellent, I wasn't offering you the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I was asking you to join the Order of the Phoenix."

_How embarrassing_, Cho thought, attempting to be dispassionate. (Unsuccessfully.) _Hilarious misinterpretations. They're not actually very funny, that's sort of how Harry—_She stopped.

"Order of the Phoenix?" she asked. "Like from the first war?"

Flitwick nodded. "It was reunited when he returned." He glanced around the room again and fiddled with his cloak. "It's quite all right if you need a while to decide—"

"No, no," Cho said. "I'll join you." After all, she had more reason to hate Voldemort than the average wizard, or at least _as_ much—the average was probably rather high... but really if you thought about it, Voldemort was responsible for Cedric's death, for Umbridge, and for everything Harry had done. It was rather handy to be able to blame Dark wizards for everything bad that happened to you.

The professor looked relieved. "All right," he said. "There's work to be done tonight. Take my arm."

_What? Now?_ "Um—well, I should really go—...wash my hair... first..." She was impressed with the lameness of her own excuse.

Flitwick nodded sympathetically. "I understand," he said. "One must have priorities in life."

Cho couldn't possibly interpret his words as other than sarcastic, but she couldn't detect a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Then he winked at her. "The address is—" He pulled out a scrap of paper and waved his wand at it, then handed it to her. "I shall leave you two to it. "

Cho stood there, stunned. He, he, um, had assumed that she—hm.

"Nngp," she managed to say before he Disapparated with a quiet pop. "No, that's not it at all!"

She cursed silently. "Who would I even..."

It was a Cho in a foul mood who found herself almost splinched messily in the street an hour later. Perhaps she'd forgotten the three D's in her shock at seeing a most familiar figure.

---

A/N: Why is this so short? Usually I write long; but if I'm going to edit it at all (not something inspiring to do in fanfiction that doesn't matter), that is impossible. Also, I don't mean to get bogged down in specifics. Long usually precludes interesting; not always, but usually. One thing that was very done in _Deathly Hallows_ was the constant pacing of attacks.

You might want to know if I know where I'm going. The answer is: I do not. Who's the familiar figure? I suppose I'll find out next time.


	3. Chapter Four

Balancing  
(Shut up, you know what's coming.)

A wild thought arose in Cho's mind.

"Ced—" she tried to say. It didn't really come out. By the time her voice was working, she felt stupid; the wizard in front of her was Amos Diggory, not his son... and he showed no signs of recognizing her. They'd only met once, anyway, before the Third Task.

She had gone to find Cedric that morning. They ran into each other in the hallway. Cedric seemed lost in thought, staring at his feet, but he looked up when he saw her and grinned.

"Good morning," he said.

"Morning," she replied, slipping in next to him. They started walking toward the Great Hall. "Nervous?"

"Incredibly."

She smiled. "Well, remember, I'll be waiting for the first person who comes out of that maze." She paused, and a dreamy expression fell over her face. "Maybe it'll be Krum."

He seemed not to notice. She punched him in the arm. "Hey now. Pay attention while I'm threatening you."

"What? Oh, sorry," he said. "I was just picturing myself gallantly rescuing Fleur from a savage beast." She scowled at him.

"Fine, fine," she said, smiling. "I guess I won't take that risk."

They stopped outside the Hall. Cedric sighed as he turned towards the door. Cho turned serious.

"So, your parents are finally here?" she asked. She glanced down. "You sure you want me to come with you?"

Cedric's jaw hardened. "Yeah, I'm sure," he said. A moment. He seemed to be debating whether to continue. "I don't want you to think I'm scared of—of showing you to my father, but, I mean, I've told you how he is. Not very... diplomatic."

She squeezed his hand. "It's okay. You're not your dad. It's not your fault, and anyway, what could happen?"

Cedric mock-groaned. "Now you've done it. That's the oldest jinx in the book." He glanced slyly at her. "'Cept maybe the spell you put on me."

Cho rolled her eyes. "Keep saying things like that and I'll have to cast some _real_ jinxes on you."

He grinned. "Shall we go?"

They went in, and passed through the hall to the side chamber. Taking a deep breath, Cedric went in, and Cho followed. Only a few people were inside. It was easy enough by process of elimination to spot the Diggorys—scratch the teachers, the ones with red hair, the ones with platinum blonde hair, the ones with grim faces...

"There you are, Ced," his father said, clapping Cedric on the shoulder bracingly. "Ready?"

"Maybe," Cedric replied. "Anyway, Mum, Dad, this is my—my friend Cho."

She flashed a quick smile. "Hello, Mr. Diggory."

Mr. Diggory quickly scanned her up and down. A slight frown creased his face. "Well, Cho," he said, "I've heard a few things about you."

"Really?" She smiled. "Positive, I hope." Cho idly wondered if there was a Disarming spell for social situations like these.

"Mm," grunted Mr. Diggory. "You play Seeker for Ravenclaw?"

"Yeah."

"Parents own some kind of shop in Diagon Alley..."

"Right."

"Haven't been involved with any other young m—"

Cho felt herself coloring.

"Dad," Cedric said.

Mr. Diggory turned to him. "Ced, it's my job as a parent to make sure you don't make any mistakes." He looked back at Cho. "No offense, Miss Chang, but you can't be too safe. Especially when Ced's all lined up to beat Harry Potter. Sure, he's hogging the spotlight now—"

"Please don't get started on that again, Dad," moaned Cedric.

"Right," said Mr. Diggory. "Anyway, when Ced wins, all the young witches'll be lining up..."

"This isn't really better," Cedric muttered. He glanced furiously over at the professors for some reason.

"...and that's why I've got a duty to find out if someone you're dating is respectable," finished Mr. Diggory.

"Respectable," Cho said. She heard her heart beating rather furiously. "Well, Mr. Diggory, I—"

She didn't get the chance to offend Cedric's father as she wished, because Professor McGonagall stepped over to them.

"Amos, I hope you won't mind if I borrow these two. Would you mind finding Potter and getting him down here?"

"Typical," Cedric's father muttered, "late for his own banquet. Right, Minerva, that's fine, plenty of time."

And so Cedric and Cho departed. As soon as they were out, Cho turned to him. "I'm not going back in there," she said.

"I don't expect you to," Cedric said heavily. "Sorry."

"You could've said something."

"I know, I know. I don't like going against him, Cho. He's my father. He—he really means well." He sighed. "What's best for me. He just... doesn't know."

"Then tell him," she said shortly. "If that's how he is to my face..."

Cedric sighed. "I'm sorry, okay?"

There was an awkward silence as they walked along.

"Do you want me to tell him off?" said Cedric. "Argue with him and get disowned or something?"

Cho admitted to herself that she didn't really have anything specific in mind. She didn't want him to argue with anyone on her account, least of all his family, as unlikeable as Mr. Diggory was.

"No, you don't have to do that," she grumbled. "I've argued with my parents about you before, you know. I'd like it if you'd at least say _something_ and not sit there and silently agree with him."

"I don't agree with him at all." Cedric's tone was slightly frustrated. "Okay. Fine. I'll tell him to go hang next time."

"I told you, don't do that. It doesn't really matter anyway." Cho turned away. "Look, I'm starving. Think you can find Harry without my help?"

"Yeah," he said. "Go on, eat. Leave me all alone in the uncharted wastelands. I'll just go die from pining for you excessively."

Cho chuckled. "Whatever. See you around."

"See you."

As it turned out, she didn't actually end up seeing him around after that.

---

A/N: Make some assumptions to fill in the gaps. Cedric and Cho are serious. How serious? I guess they never found out. Amos probably is suspicious of that damned foreigner. Mrs. Diggory doesn't actually have vocal cords.

You may wish to notice that chapters aren't really chronological yet.


End file.
